Ewan Golder, film maker and postgraduate student at the Department of Art History, will present two short films, Binary Love (2017) and The Devil’s Breath (2021). Both films were produced in Lille, France, the first during Ewan’s residency at the Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporians postgraduate programme; and the second independently with funding from the region Hauts de France. The films have technical differences (CGI vs. Super 16mm) but also share similarities (they both use the motif of bridge/tunnel, and feature the same actor Felix Verhaverbeke). During this event, Ewan will share insights to his creative process, challenges and fascinations; the screening will be followed by discussion and Q&A.
This event will be particular useful to students in Art History as well as in Media and Film. It aims at generating wider discussion across theory and practice, and creativity and reflection. You are all warmly invited!
Wednesday, 27 October 2021, 17:00 – 19:00
Grimond Lecture Theatre 3 (GLT3)
Binary Love (13 minutes; English)
Binary Love. Algorithm Blues. A convulsive love, impossible dreams, burning and whirring like an overheating hard drive, corrupting your senses. Every adventure starts with a Wi-Fi connection. But where do we go? Does it matter? Where is our narrative drive? Anything to distract us from our planned obsolescence. An intangible mystery of the mind vibrating in my hand. Downloaded straight from heaven. It’s no longer yours. Our secret selves, the strange rhythms of our subconscious, hidden from ourselves, etched into a hard drive somewhere in Greenland. Your dreams flow through the stratosphere, and with that familiar vibration, flows into my life through a hand held device. Every half thought thought, every half said remark is absorbed by the stratosphere. Share you drive with me, let our data streams merge, and what ever you do, never log off.
Stills from Binary Love (2017)
The Devil’s Breath (18 minutes; French, with English subtitles)
The Devil’s Breath is an anarchic-absurdist tragi-comedy. Two characters live out their boring monotonous lives on the edge of existence until one day they die a ridiculous death. We meet them in a post-industrial, post-soviet, post-apocalyptic, dystopian landscape. Perhaps we are in hell? We hear a moaning wind and distant machinery groaning and grinding away in pain and perhaps even the odd scream. This is Vald and Igor’s world. A world of cold, hunger and endless boredom. Perhaps we are in Limbo, some kind of purgatory; but to Igor and Vlad this world is their daily grind, a fight for survival. But for what purpose? Perhaps the endless days pass by uneventfully, identical; except that this day, naturally, will be is slightly different.
Still from The Devils (2021)
Short bio
Born and raised in a small town on the Romney Marsh, Ewan has always been equally preoccupied by the uncanny, the macabre and the absurd, and the delicate, the graceful and the transcendent. After graduation in Media Production, Ewan’s interests have been broad, learning his craft as a film-maker through a series of short films, music videos, experimental documentaries and video art. His most recent work has focused on attempting to create a subjective sensation in the viewer, an immersive experience, working with the assumption that unusual insights and perspectives are possible in characters who are somehow at odds with mainstream society. His most recent short films have explored the connection between dreams, technology and romance, alcoholism, homelessness and Alzheimer’s disease. They have been shown at the Bucharest International Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Experimental Film Festival, the Stuttgart Expanded Media Festival, CERN Geneva, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Cologne Short Film Festival, British Shorts Festival Berlin. Ewan graduated from the postgraduate programme at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in 2017. He is currently living and working in Folkestone, England, and Paris, France.